Mbenenge tribunal: First expert witness reveals Mengo and judge deleted messages from their phones

JOHANNESBURG - The Judicial Conduct Tribunal investigating sexual harassment allegations against the Eastern Cape Judge President, Selby Mbenenge, is hearing from the first expert witness in the probe into the conduct of the senior judge.

Francois Moller is an expert who was handed the phones of both parties, the complainant in the matter, Andiswa Mengo and the respondent, Mbenenge.

Moller has highlighted that both Mengo and Mbenenge deleted messages from their phones, but indicated that the deleted messages from the judge president's device were not linked to the sexual harassment claim that resulted in the tribunal.

The judicial body has resumed hearings for a further two weeks as investigations continue after Mengo accused the head of the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court of allegedly making unwanted sexual advances towards her.

On 18 September 2024, the evidence leader in the tribunal, Advocate Salome Scheepers, handed two smartphones to Moller for investigations on the contents of the devices.

Moller conducted what he termed a logical extraction, which included investigators scrolling through the devices to collate information.

But they were unable to conduct a physical extraction, which would have provided the ability to recover deleted information from the devices regardless of the location.

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However, Moller was able to recover proof that both Mbenenge and Mengo had each other's numbers, which were saved on their respective phones.

He has also revealed that Mengo had three numbers for her device and had multiple screenshots.

However, the chairperson of the tribunal, retired Judge President Bernard Ngoepe, called for an adjournment given the difficulty that the members of the panel have experienced in following the testimony of the witness, as the report submitted is not paginated.

Parties are now waiting for this to be rectified for the resumption of the matter.